While a wide variety of computer-controlled exercise machines for training and rehabilitation exist — some of which can be automatically adjusted to vary resistance or incline — such systems provide for preprogrammed changes in load or resistance. What is needed is a system that overcomes the limitations...

With self-driving vehicles poised to take the road, how can today’s engineers prepare themselves to support an autonomous future?

Brigham Young University engineers have created "developable mechanisms" that they hope to use in components like surgical instruments, adjustable airplane wings, robotic arms, or vehicle cylinders. Watch the demo on Tech Briefs TV, to see how the flat shapes can be converted into 3D figures.

How do you regulate a system that, in effect, is learning as it goes?

Our February issue of Tech Briefs highlights a technology called My Skin Track UV. The 12 x 6 mm wearable sensor can be attached to clothing or accessories to detect sunburn and overexposure to ultraviolet light.

In our lead INSIDER story today, USC Professor Qiming Wang said he hopes to see his team’s self-repairing rubber supporting everything from shoes to battle armor and airplane wings.

With design, it pays to anticipate problems — and solve them — during product development.

This software fits trajectory ephemerides and thrust profiles with a Chebyshev polynomial representation, and stores this fit in data files suitable for upload to a spacecraft. In addition, a number of utility modules are provided to assist with inspection and diagnosis of issues with data...